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This is luanie's account of our london weekend (:
Haha okay so no one actually spoke to me like that when i was london. but i did hear 'cheers, mate!' while i was there. haha. we got on board an evening flight from frankfurt hahn airport to london stansted, and the whole journey from IU to liverpool street actually took about 7 hours, with bus, train and plane connections.
after meeting everyone's friends and receiving some inevitable suan-ing from adrian, we split up and i went off to keith's apartment in old street. haha it isn't really old, quite nicely-furnished actually, but he does live right beside a cemetery.
saturday morning we met jinteng and mingrui to go watch adrian and gerald in action at the london regional games. HAHA i think we were too bored la! saw some familiar faces.. but didn't know where to place them. too many asians la..
after that i made my way to covent garden to meet my pri sch bestie, florrine ng! haha. it was great catching up with her and going around trafalgar square and covent garden market (: the buskers there are really good!! violinists and sopranos. went to the national gallery for a quick peek at van gogh's sunflowers and his chair. but the sun was so good we came out to bask in it again. haha. her bf bought her a white rose when he met up with her la!! so sweet wor.. :P
and this is the late afternoon view from the london streets of covent garden or leicester square (can't remember la). nice eh?
walked around with keith in the afternoon and went to hamley's, a huge toy store. if you enlarge the picture, you can see that the giraffe on the left costs a crazy 3,500 pounds. that's more than 10K SGD! haha this beats the heidelberg giraffe and elephant by miles!! went chinatown at night for dinner with adrian, jinteng and mingrui. haha we were still in time to catch the CNY mood and decorations there! took pics like mad coz there's no such thing as chinatown and much less CNY feeling in germany!walked around after dinner to the south bank where we saw the huge london eye, which was closed already.. and the big ben and westminster. oh there's the moon in the picture! there was actually a lunar eclipse that night, and me and jinteng kept telling adrian it was just clouds covering the moon. 
sunday keith and i ventured to greenwich to see the prime meridian, despite adrian telling me it's damn boring haha. and so we stood on either side of the prime meridian and made a wish like i read somewhere.. it was quite a challenge to take the pic of the line i tell you, coz people were just crowding around that line looking for their own countries. haha. we also stopped by the greenwich market where there were foodstuff and quirky cards and wallets and cow hide carpets and whatnot for sale. it was raining heavily the whole day and quite sian to be outside honestly. london must pay for sunny days like saturday. haha.
monday in london i waved goodbye to keith at liverpool st station and went to meet the rest at buckingham palace for the changing of guards. you would think that the novelty of the changing would have worn off (esp among the londoners) after sooooo many years of changing but no, a huge crowd gathered at the looooong gates and huuuuge roundabout of buckingham palace to watch the guards in action. they didn't look as grand in their red suits as in summer coz they had the grey winter coats on. anw the queen was in the palace while we were there! coz the Union Jack was fully hoisted up. wonder if the princes were around. haha. and so our trip in london ended biding adrian goodbye at holborn station and having this announced over the PA system in london stansted airport,"would passengers Tan, Thia, Chan and Chen please proceed to gate 43 for immediate boarding?" haha. never underestimate the size of stansted airport and the time taken to clear the baggage check.
spring is coming!
the days are getting longer,
the weather is less extreme,
the flies are starting to buzz around,
the flowers are blooming
the down jackets are in the cupboard
and it's gonna be spring!
picture taken at around 7pm.sunset at 7pm!! spring is definitely on her way (:
and so off we went to the famed blackforest mountains of germany, also known as schwarzwald. it was a school trip, so we were a group of mainly exchange students (singaporeans, an indonesian, a taiwanese, a hungarian and a latvian), one german student and our school councillor. set off on saturday morning for a 3 hour trip to altglashutten, where our hotel would be.
the weather wasn't very pleasant up in the mountains. mostly wet and and cold and with dark clouds looming overhead. when we set off for lunch after checking into the hotel, there was heavy snow just before we hustled into a restaurant. long-awaited snow for the blackforest skiers who had been relying heavily on artificial snow. haha. and when we got out, the surroundings were a beautiful pristine white! unavoidably, snowfights ensued and the girls were a prime target. poor us la!
and so we began our climb up the herzogenhorn, which is one of the peaks of the blackforest. our councillor, though 53 years of age, was freaking fit!!! he was leading the pack and had to stop quite a few times to wait for us youthful but stamina-less students. haha. inese, our latvian friend, climbed even faster than him, coz she's used to the cold. latvian winters go as cold as negative 29degC!! i think i would need 10 heat packs a day if i ever go there in winter. haha.
the second day was spent at the museum of nature and climbing up the feldberg, which is the highest peak of the blackforest. this was tiring!! for me at least. haha. i was dying after one slope. and with the wind howling around us, snow swirling and fog thickening, it certainly didn't follow the chinese saying, ‘爬得越高，看得越远' haha. soon all we could do was to follow the bright orange fence that lined the way up. i think for the 2 days, the skiers who zoomed past us in their technicolour skisuits and cool ski sets must have been am-chio-ing away. haha. wished we could just hang on to the ski lifts as well! looks so effortless. haha
and it was only when we reached the foot of the mountain on our train when we saw the blue sky again. haha how the weather plays tricks on us.
and so we were off to munich, the city of beers and more beers. haha. took the speedy ICE train and arrived in munich at around lunchtime. started our tour of the old town soon after checking into the laidback wombat hostel, where you could get a 'blow job' at the coffee machine haha. walked around the pretty marienplatz where the architecture just wows you away, esp the new rathaus. continued walking around, seeing churches, the residenz (palace) and the odeonplatz till it was a bit dark. took the underground train to the olympic village. by this time it was completely dark and the huge stadium was closed already. we did managed to see the swimming pool however. haha. i wanna swim!!
second day in munich marked our venture into the outer part of dachau, where there was a concentration camp memorial site. it's a really huge place with low-rise, cold-looking buildings. it's quite a sad place, reading all the recounts of prisoners and seeing their living conditions would make one feel rather depressed. the exhibition was a bit too lengthy for our liking. we found out about sick medical experiments that they performed on the prisoners. for e.g. they let prisoners only drink sea water as an experiment to see how long they could survive on it. sick. all hitler's doing. 
on that rather low note, we left dachau to walk around the old town once more to catch some sights we missed out the previous day. since it was CNY eve we pampered ourselves with a GOOD dinner at the famous hofbrauhaus! the place was HUGE!! at least a hundred people were there i think. we had their famous PORK KNUCKLE and jt's favourite SAUSAGES!! and some funny potatoes which tasted like kee zhang. haha. tried their beer too, though jt wouldnt go near one. we sat with an american exchange student and chatted with him for the whole dinner. quite fun!
last day in munich we checked out early and took a 2hour train ride to fussen where the highlight of our trip awaited us, the inspiration for the castle in the walt disney logo - schloss neuschwanstein!! we could not stop snapping away at the castle la! it was totally out of a fairytale. the weather was good, the sky was blue, the castle was pretty. it just made my exchange! hahahaha. the place was filled with koreans for some reason. and the castle was quite modern for its time.. got central flushing and internal heating.. or was it internal flushing and central heating? hahaha.
and the king died even before he got to complete the castle! haha. due to some people not paying attention to the tour guide, i won a free cup of hot chocolate!!! hahaha.
and so we embarked on our trip to the german capital of BERLIN (pronounced bare-leen in german). took the CityNightLine at 11+pm and slept on the train from heidelberg hbf until we reached berlin-spandau station at 7plus the next morning. had about 5 hours sleep on the train seats but they were much more comfortable as compared to the airplane seats we had on the way here. settled in our hostel in charlottenberg, which was in west berlin. small and clean place. cheap too! 9.50 euros per nite. haha. thanks to jt's 'let's go europe on a budget' book. and so we left the hostel to see berlin. at berlin hauptbahnhof we found my good friend, dunkin donuts!! happiness! hahaha.. walking on around east berlin, we saw the reichstag with its magnificent new dome, the brandenburg gate, the holocaust memorial, the iMax centre, checkpoint charlie and what was left of the berlin wall (6 narrow graffiti-ed slabs at potsdamer platz).
the next day we continued our tour in west berlin, which consisted mainly of SHOPPING for the benefit of the girls HAHA. tonnes of shopping centres! i think the guys would have to admit that the shopping centres were a welcome stop from the snow and rain outside, haha. on sunday we had to wake up early early early to catch the 7plus train to dresden. along the way we met some dresden FC fans who were drunk and noisy and interrupted our sleep. they had to travel like 3 hours to their match from berlin hbf!! imagine doing that every wkend. haha the power of football. and so we arrived at our hostel in dresden-neustadt. it's such a pretty cosy place!! check out the double bed on the double bunk bed (which isnt very clear in the middle pic)! haha and the cool star-shaped lights in the corridor. jt and i slept on the upper bunk and we both had our fair share of knocking our heads on the low ceiling. 
left the hostel to check out the dresden sights. the weather was SO GOOD, a comfortable 10degC. visited the zwinger museum (which we almost mistook for the royal palace due to its grandeur), the opera house, the church of our lady, the river elbe and the schloss (which was the least impressive, ironically).
our last day in dresden already! we took the local tram to radebeul, which was famous for its vineyards. took a bus until we reached their very small schloss. it had a very manicured lawn as you can see in the 1st picture of the 2nd row. we climbed and climbed up the slope to the observatory where we got a great view of dresden (or maybe radebeul only haha)! after that we took the tram back to dresden neustadt station when we realized we had missed the timings for the traditional steam train. and it was back to bruchsal after that on expensive ICE trains!!
and so after the fateful weekend trip to konstanz, we (including ivina this time) braved the trains again to nearby heidelberg on monday, only 30 min away by s-bahn (which is the local train connection). upon arrival we made our usual pilgrimage to the iPunkt which supplied us with the city map and bus information, and we were on our way to the romantic old town of Heidelberg!i really have to say that heidelberg is the one of the most beautiful places in germany. the old architecture and ruined castle, the cobbled streets and old town split by the neckar river. just so enchanting.we made out way up the castle first, taking the steeper route as we couldn't find the gentler one.we wandered around the ruins of the garden and climbed around, taking pictures of the town and river below us. walking deeper in we found a HUGE brewery and some korean tourists. there was a museum of, i forgot, some chemistry/pharmaceutical stuff inside where we found burettes and pipettes and condensers. haha.walking on we found the schlossgarten (schloss being the german word for castle and garten, garden). there were empty ponds with these very tiny wooden slopes leading to the edges, which jt helpfully pointed out that "you see! these are to help the turtles to climb into the pond!!" after which there was a stunned silence.
so we went to explore the old town in search of lunch after the castle, and settled on a rather good meal of salmon spaghetti for me, boiled pork knuckle for the guys and fish fingers for ivina (whom i guess was rather thankful we didn't subject her to another meal of DONER, the turkish bread meal so commonly found here). jt was full from bread. haha. walking around the hauptstrasse (main street), we admired the old buildings and assortment of shops like bakeries and toy shops which sold giraffe stuffed toys (about a metre tall) for 1200+ euros and stuffed elephants for1500 euros!!! THREE THOUSAND SGD. you say mad or not?we crossed the neckar river on the old bridge and had quite a nice view of the ruined castle from the bridge. the best thing about walking around in that cold rainy weather was the piping hot cup of hot chocolate in our hands. too bad it turns cold soon after. walked back to the town after that and shopped for a bit, since us bruchsal bumpkins hardly see any shopping centres, and after dinner, it was back to hall sweet hall!
made our way to the beautiful Lake Konstanz in the very south of Germany. If i'm not wrong Lake Konstanz is just on the border of both Germany and Switzerland. there were clear skies and sparkling blue waters to greet us there, including a statue of a lady who made gerald DDG (du dio gui). haha. the town was far more bustling than our small one of bruchsal, with many famous brands like Chanel and more dotting the streets. 
took a ferry to the opposite shore of meersburg, which, according to the lady at the iPunkt (tourist information), was more scenic than konstanz. by the time we reached meersburg however, it was already dark and we could hardly see any sights. after a short walk up a slope we just made our way to the uberlingen train station to return to bruchsal. and here's where the story begins. the connection timetable showed that we should change trains at basel bad bahnhof and karlsruhe before we would reach bruchsal at the normal timing of about 12mn. wells we did reach basel bad bahnhof safe and sound. but we did not leave the station with the same safe sound feeling.
despite standing in front of the train we were supposed to board, having the words KARLSRUHE in bold print on the piece of paper stuck on the train RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR NOSES, we happily let the train chug away as a lady (whom jt would love to kick) told us that it was NOT OUR TRAIN. and tadah! there were to be no trains for us till an hour later. the next connection which we found would take us back to bruchsal the next morning at 6am!!!!!
so we waited it out for an hour at basel bad, hoping to fill our poor tummies at a nearby macdonalds. after staring at the list of prices for a while, we were rather bewildered by the prices which were about twice the usual. not only that, there were weird 'fr.'s' behind the prices. it was only after mr spoke to the cashier that we found out...
we were in SWITZERLAND!! madness after madness la. totally couldnt buy anythin to eat coz we didn't have swiss francs on us. we also realized that the prices quoted by the cab driver we approached was so exorbitant because 1) he quoted francs and 2) he had to drive from switzerland to germany!
many complaints and grumblings later, we boarded the train on our way to offenberg to wait for THREE ETERNITY-LIKE HOURS from 1am to 4am for our next train. hai. horrible horrible night. metal chairs and small heaters in a small plastic box-like room were all we had to sleep in. never been to happy to board a train after that.
and SO. we board our last train thinking we'll finally be able to reach beloved bruchsal at 6am. but it was too dark and guess what! we missed the stop bruchsal despite seeing a lovely s-bahn beckoning us to get off with the words 'bruchsal' on its side. so the train went on and on and on, nonstop, and we arrived at STUTTGART.
i have to admit at this point i was beyond tired and shock at our missing trains and stops. so i was rather happy taking pictures at stuttgart since i had never been there unlike the rest. haha. that would explain my enthusiasm in posing for pictures like the one in the middle.
we finally made our way back to bruchsal at about 9am, 9 hours behind schedule but in one piece. all 4 of us just napped our way through lunch and only woke up for dinner. HAHA.
worst trip in the history of our train-taking experiences here but a very memorable one to say the least. hehe. right, addicts?
and this is the late afternoon view from the london streets of covent garden or leicester square (can't remember la). nice eh?
monday in london i waved goodbye to keith at liverpool st station and went to meet the rest at buckingham palace for the changing of guards. you would think that the novelty of the changing would have worn off (esp among the londoners) after sooooo many years of changing but no, a huge crowd gathered at the looooong gates and huuuuge roundabout of buckingham palace to watch the guards in action. they didn't look as grand in their red suits as in summer coz they had the grey winter coats on. anw the queen was in the palace while we were there! coz the Union Jack was fully hoisted up. wonder if the princes were around. haha. 
